Santi Galvez, a seventh-grader at West Hartford’s Bristow Middle School, writes about why more people should join scouting.

Hiking down Mount Monadnok. Pictured are Santi Galvez, Desmond McGloin, Christian Espinoz. Courtesy photo

By Santi Galvez

Discover your place in the world – join scouting!

Find a whole new universe of opportunities and benefits! You can also spend a lot of time connecting with nature in scouts and nature, if you didn’t know, is very relaxing.

Through scouting, you also get to learn a variety of survival skills, such as cooking, camping, and lighting fires. Scouting also helps you become more confident in yourself by helping you overcome and complete obstacles, and you learn things on your own. Additionally, by doing merit badges, you can get opportunities to work and learn from very informative and interesting professionals.

One of the best things is getting to work with positive role models, such as our scoutmaster, Mr. Ron Ward. Also, through merit badge work, you get to learn about work fields that you wouldn’t otherwise learn, such as leatherwork, moviemaking, and environmental science.

Christian Espinoza (left) and Santi Galvez make a fire. Courtesy photo

Arguably one of the most important things that scouting can teach you is how to take care of yourself, along with the other reasons, I think that scouting builds strong communities because, to have a good community, you have to take care of it, and scouting gives you the values to take action and take care of it. Scouting can also make you more tough and resilient.

When you are in a meeting or camp or at an event, there are lots of challenges you will have to face. You may not pass all of the challenges but you can learn from your mistakes and “fail better” as Thomas Edison once said. Overall, being a scout has lots of advantages to help you become a really good adult.

If you are considering joining our troop 146 family, feel free to reach out to our scoutmaster, Mr. Ron Ward, at [email protected], or go to www.scouttroop146.com for more information.

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